


Unable to Comply

by outlier



Category: Fingersmith - Sarah Waters
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-09
Updated: 2010-08-09
Packaged: 2017-11-22 16:05:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/611674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outlier/pseuds/outlier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It isn’t always like this, because as much as Sue wants to please Maud and vice versa, Sue nearly cries with the thought of hurting her. Maud tries to assure her that it’s not really hurting if that’s what she wants, but Sue just shakes her head and looks at her, eyes swimming with tears, and so she doesn’t ask again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unable to Comply

It isn’t always like this, because as much as Sue wants to please Maud and vice versa, Sue nearly cries with the thought of hurting her. Maud tries to assure her that it’s not really hurting if that’s what she wants, but Sue just shakes her head and looks at her, eyes swimming with tears, and so she doesn’t ask again.

There are things that change that, though, in small and large ways. Maud will look at her in a certain way, and she wishes she knew just what way that was, and Sue will dig her nails into Maud’s wrist as she pulls her along behind her, nearly tripping up the stairs as she leads her to their bedroom. Once she gets her there, Maud invariably finds herself stumbling backwards, knees hitting the mattress with enough force to send her sprawling. Sue kisses her hard enough to bruise and fumbles with her skirts; Maud can feel her frustration in the way the fabric pulls tight against her until Sue’s managed to work her way beneath it, and it’s good that she’s already prepared because Sue doesn’t wait.

Afterwards, when she’s clawed at Sue’s shoulders and shouted herself hoarse, Sue will simply look at her. The coldness melts away slowly, as if seeing Maud there beneath her, face flushed, with her hair sweat-soaked and clinging to her skin, and with a look of such absolute devotion on her face, is enough to take the thing that has driven Sue to that place and lock it neatly away again.

Maud thinks maybe that’s the worst punishment of all.

She writes her books. She’d told the fiendish Mr. Rivers they left her cold and she’d believed it, until Sue had brought life to them. It had been difficult, sitting there with her uncle, and it’d been so very wrong, because thoughts of Sue had swirled through her mind along with his words and musings, and she’d tried to focus on the page and not his voice. Never his voice, because she didn’t want the two to twine, but the words would swim before her eyes and she would feel the gathering wetness between her legs. She’d imagine Sue there, staring forward impassively as she always did when in her uncle’s library, with the exception of those times she cast a sly smile Maud’s way. And it was the memory of those smiles that made it okay, made her uncle’s voice fade away completely.

It’s the way she writes, now, with the image of Sue always in her mind’s eye. It makes her feel dirty, putting to paper the things she wants to do to Sue and have Sue do to her in return, so she hides those pages from her. She doesn’t want Sue to read them, to know of the things she wants but can’t bring herself to ask for anymore.

They see a gentleman in the village, with wavy golden brown hair and almost dainty features, and when they’re back in the carriage, Sue covers Maud's mouth with her hand so the driver won’t hear her scream. Maud scrambles with her own skirts, hiking them up until Sue can finally reach her skin, and then Sue’s free hand is pressing up and into her. She wishes Sue’s palm wasn’t smothering her cries, because she wants them to know – wants everyone to know – as she stretches tightly around Sue’s fingers and thrusts her hips up with absolute abandon, fully aware of how wanton she must seem.

She barely manages to compose herself before the carriage rocks to a stop in front of Briar. She seizes Sue’s hand, bringing it to her mouth and licking each of her fingers, eyes locked on Sue’s, until she sees the panic start to build in Sue’s gaze. The footman is just outside, and the creak and click of the door being opened may as well have been the firing of a cannon; Sue manages to pull her hand free just seconds before the door cracks open and light spills in to illuminate them, sitting facing one another, Sue tense and Maud boneless.

Sue doesn’t talk to her for the rest of the evening, but Maud apologizes that night when the room is dark and still and her kisses are soft, each one a whispered "I’m sorry."

Maud makes a deliberate effort to be good. She writes, but refuses to let herself think of Sue, and it’s worthless, really. None of it will earn them even a shilling, but she owes her this measure of respect.

“I just can’t forget it sometimes,” Sue says to her one morning, and the sadness in her eyes tears into Maud.

She bites her tongue to keep from saying, “I can’t either.”

She starts a new story, and it’s shameful. She pictures the place to which she condemned Sue, but she only writes a few pages before she has to stop. There’s no other way to purge herself of the guilt, but, then, this isn’t the way either.

She leaves it, picks up the familiar refrain of the lady and her maid, and wonders how many times she can tell this story before they refuse to take any more of her words.

A week passes, and then two, and she forgets about the meager beginnings of the story she should never have written until she sees the page curling in Sue’s hand.

“What is this?”

Sue won’t look at her, won’t do anything other than stare down at the piece of parchment, and Maud feels a hole open in her chest. Her voice is weak when she says, “It’s nothing.”

The way Sue looks at her then, the page falling softly to the desktop, nearly sends her to her knees.

“You’re the one what’s been teaching me,” Sue says coldly, and now Maud wishes she’d look anywhere but at her. “I know that word, Maud. I’m not as stupid now.”

Maud feels something within her grow desperate. “You were never stupid. Never. I never thought that, Sue.”

“You’re writing about me in that place?”

“No…”

“In the madhouse?”

“It was a mistake.”

“What do you have them do to me there? Tell me, Maud.” Sue pauses, and her voice grows pinched, nasty. “What do you do to me there? What kind of story have you written, then? Read it to me.”

She can feel the tears rolling down her cheeks already, but she can’t bring herself to close the distance between them. Not with Sue looking at her with such anger. With such betrayal.

“I was wrong to start it.” She looks away for a moment, then gathers herself and meets Sue’s gaze again, forcing herself to look.

“You said you wrote about how you wanted me,” Sue accuses. “About how you love me.”

“I do.”

“And that’s the way you want me? Like I was then, in the madhouse? That’s the way you love me?”

“Sue, no. That’s not…”

Sue takes a step forward, tense with frustration and anger, and Maud flinches but doesn’t step back. “You don’t know what they did to me there.”

Maud remembers Sue as she was in Ms. Sucksby’s kitchen that horrible day when she’d returned and Gentleman had been murdered, with a gash through her eyebrow that was only half healed, and her neck rubbed red and raw. “I’m so sorry,” she says, because there’s never been anything she’s meant more.

“You don’t know.”

She hasn’t heard that sort of sharpness in Sue’s voice since that day in the kitchen, either.

In the face of it, she sinks to her knees slowly. There is a clear note of pleading in her voice when she says, “I don’t know, Sue. I don’t know and I think sometimes I don’t want to know, because I couldn’t bear it. But I should know, shouldn’t I? I should know what you suffered. What I caused you to suffer.”

The look is back in Sue’s eyes; it burns hotter now than it had the day they’d glimpsed the man who reminded them both so much of Gentleman, but Maud feels no fingers clawing at her skirts or at her shoulders. Instead, Sue stays where she is, staring down, jaw clenched.

“They beat me,” she says finally, her voice as dry and detached as if they were discussing household finances. “When I did something wrong or when I didn’t do something wrong, they beat me. It didn’t matter one way or the other. It was my punishment, you see, for not being mad when they thought I was. And that was just for the everyday mistakes. The special times, they put more effort into it, didn’t they. They tied me down to a rack and held me under the water until I thought I was sure to drown, and then they’d bring me back up long enough to catch my breath and it’d be back under again. Maybe they thought they could wash the madness out of me.”

Maud knows it isn’t her right to grieve her mistakes, not when Sue must still live with the memory of them, but the truth is worse than she’d expected. She hadn’t allowed herself to think of it before, not really, because there were times when it was best that they pretend. There was the beginning, when Sue came to her at Briar and they went about the business of falling in love, and there was the end, when Sue came back to her with forgiveness she didn’t merit. It helped no one to remember the parts in between.

Her eyes have fallen to the floor, tears falling to stain the wood, so she isn’t aware of Sue until she sees the swish of skirts in front of her.

“There now,” Sue says comfortingly, though there’s something hollow about it, her hand cupping Maud’s chin to bring her gaze up once again. “There’s nothing we can do about that now. It’s in the past.”

Only it can never be in the past, Maud thinks, especially not now that she knows the truth.

“You mustn’t be so forgiving,” she whispers, leaning into Sue’s touch as she brings a thumb up to wipe away a tear. “I don’t deserve it.”

“And what should I do, then? Punish you for the past?”

Maud knows she doesn’t mean it, but her brain seizes onto the word and won’t let go.

“Yes,” she says, and it’s almost breathless. “You should. You must.”

“Must what?” Sue asks, but Maud doesn’t answer. She’s already struggling to her feet, fingers fumbling with the buttons on her simple dress. They don’t come undone without effort, and she grows frustrated the longer it takes, because this makes sense to her. It makes perfect sense.

“Must what?” This time, Sue’s voice is demanding. It’s muffled, because Maud is pulling her dress over her head, the task more complicated than it should be, but she has no practice at this. She’s never really done it for herself, and the heavy fabric isn’t made to be removed with ease, so Sue’s hands join hers, helping even if she doesn’t understand.

“You know what these books say,” Maud murmurs, and now her struggle is with petticoats and undergarments, all the layers of cloth that keep her bound. “I’ve read them to you.”

“Yeah,” Sue scoffs, “and a fine lot of literature they are.”

She’s finally naked, and Sue looks at her a moment before looking over to the window. The curtains are pulled wide; she can see Briar’s grounds stretching out before her just as easily as anyone else could look inside and see Maud standing before her as she is, so she rushes over and pulls them closed then turns, her confusion mingled with anger in a way that makes her feel nearly helpless.

Maud is stretched across the desk, her cheek laid to its surface, watching her, and she understands.

“This?” she asks, and the anger is once again clear in her voice. “This is how you apologize?”

“No.” The word is rough, plaintive. “This is how I atone.”

Sue looks away for a moment, then shakes her head. “How is it punishment, for me to give you what you want? How is it punishment if you enjoy it?”

“You must make sure I don’t.”

She thinks for a moment that Sue will say no, and wonders again if that’s worse.

It feels like nearly a full minute later when Sue finally speaks. “Not there,” she says hoarsely, then settles into the chair behind the desk. The chair that once belonged to her supposed uncle, Maud thinks, and now belongs to her. “Here.”

She rises slowly, trying not to blush at the look on Sue’s face. There’s reluctance mixed with curiosity there, and the desire for her that Sue’s never been able to hide. She draws to a stop in front of Sue and looks at her expectantly, but Sue says nothing further, her instructions already delivered.

It is both more heady and more humiliating than she’d imagined, settling herself over Sue’s knees. She feels vulnerable, more exposed than she’d ever anticipated, especially when one of Sue’s hands runs between her legs.

“Like I expected,” Sue mutters from above her, and Maud flushes with embarrassment, because despite everything else that’s happened, she’s been wet since she saw Sue standing by her desk with a page from that story in her hand. She can feel that same wetness against her flesh as Sue runs her hand across the curve of her bottom, the touch almost gentle. “But it’s not your fault, is it? You’ve been reading that filth all your life.”

She wants her to just go ahead and do it, to begin to bestow the absolution she’s been seeking, but Sue doesn’t seem to be in any sort of hurry. Instead the hand returns, fingers insinuating themselves between her legs, and soon they’re stroking against her gently. “Will you put this in one of your stories?”

The way her fingers stop moving seems to suggest that she’s actually expecting an answer.

“Only if you want,” Maud says finally, concentrating hard on remaining still. She wants to press back against Sue’s touch, wants it desperately, but it’s not her place. She doesn’t deserve it.

“One of your maid stories?” The fingers begin to move again, and Maud nearly sighs with relief. “One of those stories where you tell about how your maid saw to it you weren’t a virgin on your wedding night?”

She’s nearly lost the will to keep herself from moving when the fingers disappear again, settling now at the small of her back.

“It’s never the truth of it,” Maud says, and blinks back tears once again, because she wonders now if she’s cheapened it, if she’s taken something beautiful and made it ugly. “They don’t want to read about love, and I don’t want to tell them about it.”

The first blow catches her completely unaware. She jumps, then stiffens. It’s not painful. It’s instead almost hesitant, but she moans anyway.

Sue’s voice sounds as if it’s coming from far away. “You read these stories, didn’t you? Read them to men. To strangers.”

The second blow is harder than the first. It leaves a faint sting behind, but it fades far too quickly.

“I did.”

“And they enjoyed it.”

Two more come in quick succession on alternating sides, and she presses her face against the arm of the chair to keep from moaning again. The next one comes a second later and is much sharper, the first hint of real pain Maud feels.

“Tell me.”

“They enjoyed it,” she says quietly, still filled with shame over the way they would watch her as she read, full of lust and evil thoughts.

She expects another blow, but it doesn’t come.

“Did you enjoy it?”

Maud tenses, but not from anticipation. “I didn’t enjoy any of it. Not until I met you.”

There’s a short laugh, and then a hand against her backside again. It seems to find the same spot over and over, a flurry of blows landing one right after the other, and she begins to squirm. She doesn’t realize that she’s reached a hand back to shield herself until it’s caught at the wrist, twisted upward, and pressed hard against her spine.

“You read your uncle’s books and thought of me?”

She isn’t sure whether Sue is affronted or not. Her voice is stark, impossible to read.

Either way, her answer is ashamed. “I did.”

“Thought of me doing this to you?”

The question is followed by another series of blows, these hard enough so that she draws in a deep breath and doesn’t realize she’s holding it until Sue stops. She finds she’s dug the fingers of her free hand into Sue’s skirts, and has to make a conscious effort to relax. It hasn’t taken long for her skin to start to smart, and it’s more than she’d imagined it would be. The sting spreads out into a dull ache, and she thinks of her uncle’s books, where girls endure this on the other end of a belt or whip, or with the flat of a hairbrush substituting for a hand, and she wonders if she could bear it.

The sharp slap once again catches her by surprise.

“I did,” she admits, only barely remembering the question.

The next question comes with a hard spank, as if anticipating a tardy answer.

“Did you think of doing this to me?”

She almost refuses to answer, but Sue’s hand tightens on her wrist in warning. She blushes deeply, but whispers a pained, “Yes.”

Sue’s hand settles gently against her, and she can feel the tightness and heat of her skin reflected back in the touch. She wonders if Sue’s finished, if this is over.

“But I’ve been punished enough, haven’t I?” It’s accompanied by the dig of nails into her skin, and Maud cries out sharply, her mind momentarily going blank. “It’s your turn now.”

And she’d told Sue to do it, nearly begged her, so she can’t complain. She wouldn’t anyway, because no matter that she struggles, this is what Maud has wanted. It’s not long before she stops being able to tell the blows apart, because they fall over and over again until her skin is painted with them from the small of her back to her upper thighs. Sue’s always been stronger than she’s given her credit for, so it isn’t surprising that she keeps her grip on Maud’s wrist. It isn’t surprising that she controls the way Maud begins to wriggle and buck. The chair scrapes against the floor, driven by their combined exertion, and there’s not an inch of Maud that can’t feel the throbbing sting of Sue’s hand against her flesh.

It takes her a moment to realize that it’s stopped. She’s crying again, out of breath and panting so hard she’s nearly sobbing with it. Sue’s hand is just resting against her now, and it’s as if Maud can feel her heartbeat at the place where Sue’s palm is pressed to her skin.

“Up here,” Sue says, once Maud’s breathing has finally begun to return to normal.

It takes her a moment to figure out what she’s supposed to do, but Sue’s hands guide her, gentle now. She ends up straddling Sue’s thighs, and hisses when her bottom scrapes against the rough material of Sue’s skirts.

“Better now?” Sue asks, reaching up to wipe away a tear, much as she had earlier.

As before, Maud presses into the touch.

She’s disappointed when Sue’s hand slides away, tracing down her neck, over her sternum and her belly, until she shifts the position of her wrist so that her fingers are pointed down. When they slide against her, slipping in the copious wetness between her thighs, she wants to look away, but the expression on Sue’s face won’t let her. So she holds Sue’s gaze once again, even as her cheeks color with a blush.

The look on Sue’s face when she presses into her is fiercely intense, almost enough by itself to have driven Maud’s gasp. “Go ahead, then,” Sue says, curling her fingers inward but remaining stationary, and it takes Maud a moment to divine her meaning.

When she does, the pleasure of it shivers down her spine. She has to reach forward, her hands wrapping around the back of the chair for support. She wiggles even closer, her knees digging into the fabric of the seat to cement her balance.

She’s immediately reminded of what transpired just before when she shifts, because her skin is swollen and tight, and even the slight movement seems magnified. It doesn’t matter, though, because she’s not going to stop, her hips pressing up and then back down.

There has never not been a time when she hasn’t wanted Sue inside of her.

It doesn’t take long. It can’t, because she’s so close to the edge that she was in danger of tumbling over it before they even began. She lets Sue know how much she’s pleased her, her final moan guttural and low, before she kisses her hard, unable to keep from it any longer.

“Is it enough?” Sue whispers against her lips, watching her closely.

Maud’s smile is faint, her eyes full of the devotion she doesn’t ever want to have to hide again.

“Never.”


End file.
